Pathfinder - Occultist Archetypes Breakdown

Last Updated: December 6th, 2017

Disclaimer

I will use content from the core rules, but will intentionally omit any content not published
on the official Pathfinder SRD due to the
unmanageable volume of non-SRD content, and the wildly varying quality of non-SRD content.
If you would like me to write handbooks for specific content not published on the official
SRD, please email me and I will consider it on a case-by-case
basis. I will use the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build
handbooks. Also note that many colored items are also links to the Paizo SRD.

Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational.

Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances

Green: Good options.

Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character.

Temporary Note: Pathfinder Unchained and Occult Adventures were
both recently added to the SRD. I'm excited to explore them, and I am actively working
on adding their contents to my collection of handbooks. I appreciate your patience while
I make these changes.

Archetypes

Tbe Occultist is a class without focus, and without purpose. Building a good
Occultist requires that you find a way to make the Occultist good at something. This
is typically difficult, but with an archetype the Occultist gains a clear sense of
purpose and direction. Most of the Occultist's archetypes are good, and honestly
I don't think I would ever play a vanilla occultist.

Battle Host replaces the Occultist's "Circles" abilities, but makes the Occultist
clearly useful in combat by granting bonus feats and heavy armor proficiency. If you
plan to be in melee as an Occultist, this is a fantastic option. Ranged Occultists
won't get quite as much use, but it's still a good option for the bonus feats.

Class Skills: Two additional knowledge skills expand the
Occultist's ability to play the party's Librarian.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Heavy armor is a must for
melee Occultists, and you get it for free.

Panoply Bond (Su): No more juggling a bunch of different
implements, now you can do everything with one item. Also, you get a free masterwork
item at first level. Yes, that can be free masterwork full plate. There aren't any
future abilities which enhance the item, so the only difference between a weapon,
shield, or armor is which you're less worried about dropping. Armor tends to be very
difficult to drop in combat, so I think armor is the clear winner here.

Battle Skill: Magic Item Skill is a nice bonus, but you
really don't require UMD to function, especially since Battle Host gives you a clear
and useful role in combat.

Battle Reading: Technically not as useful as Object
Reading, but a lot of the people you care about will have weapons and armor to read.

Bonus Feats: 4 bonus combat feats goes a long way, Even
with Battle Host, the Occultist is largely on their own to make themselves useful in
combat. Feats are your best option for doing that, so 4 more is a big help.

Spirit Warrior (Sp): You get access to the effect of
Spiritual Ally two levels before a cleric, which is great. However, it never scales in
effectiveness, so it will fall behind as you gain levels.

Heroic Splendor (Su): An Insight bonus to an ability score
will stack with your items, which is amazing. Boost your Strength and go do some damage.

The Necromancy implement school is limited severely by its small list of spell
choices. Just opening up the Necroccultist's spell list goes a long way to improve
Necromancy for the Occultist. You're locked into the Necromancy implement school far
more than a vanilla Occultist would be, but honestly that's what you want.

Necromantic Bond (Su): You lose the second implement school
gained at first level in addition to the one you normall gain at 14th level. In exchange,
you can learn from a considerably largest list of possible necromancy spells. The bump
to your Necromancy spell DCs at level 14 is huge. +2 means that your spell DCs match
spells up to 8th level from full casters. Your options won't be as good, but the ones
you have will be reliable.

Deadspeaker (Su): Situational, but no more situational
than Object Reading.

Ghostly Horde (Su): This will eat your Mental Focus
very quickly, but it's typeless damage that few creatures will resist in a large AOE,
and you can continue it as a Swift Action for as long as you can afford.

Life Drain (Sp): Basicalley Enervation with half
damage. Negative levels are extremely powerful, so they're generally not available
to players until very high spell levels.

Where Battle Host focuses the Occultist on combat, the Sha'ir focuses the Occultist
on elemental spells. This allows the Occultist to be more of a blast, and its pet Jin
provide constant access to pet elementals which resemble summoned creatures with greatly
enhanced hit points and saving throws.

Jin (Su): This is a mixed bag. You get additional spells
known from "elemental schools", which is great. Elemental spells are generally offensive
spells (fireball, etc.), giving the Occultist access to usable damage spells, and
leaving room in your normal spells known to select other spells without being tempted
by damage spells. However, your Jin are physical creatures with truly terrible stats.
If they're hit, they're almost certainly dead, and you're out a bunch of spells and a
point of mental focus the next day. Fortunately, Augment Jin comes online at level 2
and your Jin will be at least passably survivable.

Augment Jin (Sp, Su): You need to invest in your saves
and hit points. You want high Dex/Con/Wis, a cloak of resistance as soon as you can
find one, and you may want the Toughness feat. The bits about your Jin using your
hit points and saves still apply while your Jin are augmented, so if you invest in
your own defenses you can turn your Jin into durable pets.

Manifest Jin (Su): This removes the Young template from
your Jin, and returns the special abilities that it lost (burn, whirlwind, etc.). At
this level your Jin will only be useful for utility at small size, but at least you
don't need to spend focus to send your air Jin to go fetch things.

Jin Spy (Su): Pick your least favorite Jin, and send
them to go gather some information for you. If you have abilities from all of your
Jin this can handicap you temporarily, but you also don't need to negotiate or spend
money. It's unclear, but I think you still need to spend the 1 point of Mental Focus
to activate the ability, and since you never have more than 4 Jin you can never set
more than 4 to perform tasks.

Tome Eater grants a very interesting way to recover Mental Focus, but ubless you're
going to burn through focus points quickly, the drawbacks aren't worth what you give
up.

Bonded Tome (Su): Only one implement means less items to
juggle, and you also get the ability to boost your caster level or DC by 1 a few times
per day. Boosting your DC is great when you need to hit with a save-or-suck spell, and
since Occultists are only 2/3 casters your DCs are a big problem. However, you get one
fewer focus schools than other Occultists, which limits your options, and even with the
+1 to spell DCs you're still not a supremacy caster.

Devour Books and Scrolls (Sp): This is a really weird
ability that does a whole bunch of stuff that should really be formatted as separate
abilities. The TL;DR is that you can eat mundane books to regain Mental Focus (the least
expensive of the three options by far), and if enemies cast spells from scrolls around
you, you can eat the spell to regain Mental Focus.

Word Sense (Sp, Su): Too situational. Real-world librarians
and bibliophiles would salivate over this, but it's just not all that useful for adventurers
in most cases.